Conventionally, in an inspection facility such as a large-scale inspection center, a plurality of analyzers for analyzing a sample such as blood and urine, and a plurality of reagent supplying apparatuses for supplying a reagent to each analyzer are provided. In such an inspection facility, the reagent is supplied to each analyzer from the reagent supplying apparatuses, and on the side of the analyzer, the supplied reagent and the sample are blended, and a measurement sample for analysis is thereby prepared and analyzed. Then, generally a monitor for confirming a remaining amount of the reagent is provided in each reagent supplying apparatus, and an operator confirms the remaining amount of the reagent displayed on the monitor of each reagent supplying apparatus and performs maintenance such as an exchange of the reagent.
Then, conventionally, U.S. Pat. No. 5,428,993 proposes a technique of detecting the remaining amount of the reagent in the reagent supplying apparatuses and displaying the remaining amount of the reagent thus detected on the monitor. A reagent container placed on a weight sensor is connected through the tube to an automatic analyzer disclosed in this U.S. Pat. No. 5,428,993, and the reagent used for analysis is supplied to the automatic analyzer through the tube from inside the reagent container. In addition, the weight sensor has a function of transmitting to the automatic analyzer total weight data of the reagent container in which the reagent is stored. Then, the automatic analyzer that receives the total weight data transmitted from the weight sensor displays, on the monitor of the reagent supplying apparatus the remaining amount of the reagent and a warning of shortage of reagent calculated from the total weight data.
However, in the aforementioned conventional inspection facility, the remaining amount of the reagent is displayed on the monitor of each reagent supplying apparatus, thus involving a problem that an operator must move to each reagent supplying apparatus to confirm the remaining amount of the reagent. In addition, in order to grasp the remaining amount of the reagent, in the whole inspection facility, the operator needs to move around all the reagent supplying apparatuses to confirm the remaining amount of the reagent in each reagent supplying apparatus and record it on paper, etc. Therefore, labor and time are required for confirming information regarding the remaining amount of the reagent used for each reagent supplying apparatus, thus making it difficult to efficiently monitor the information regarding the remaining amount of the reagent.